Graduated high school in '88. In '84, I was in 9th grade, and took typing. It was geared towards those planning to enter “business tracks” (secretarial work), and was taught on completely manual typewriters. My little hands were VERY sore after an hour of typing.
Best class I ever took, even if it did lead to my first ‘in school suspension’ after yelling a curse at another student who spun my platen in mid-typing (intentionally, he was a bully) causing me to have to start that page over. The teacher didn’t care for the reason for my outburst, only that I had sworn.
My typing skills made me a few dollars in college, as I was one of the few in the Fraternity that could type quickly, and accurately. It’s certainly served me well in my career as an IT worker.
::raises hand:: I work part-time at the community college, typing for the nursing instructors. There’s a lot of correspondence, exams and quizzes. They know how to type but it’d take them forever.
I haven’t worked in a law office for about 20 years, but I imagine lawyers still use typists.
I took typing in 9th grade, before computers. My high school had a business/office/accounting curriculum that would rival the business colleges.
I do remember that in several grades in elementary school, we would have “computer day” once a week or so. But there was no explicit act of teaching us how to type. One thing you could do at “computer day” was play “typing tutor” if you wanted to, and I know I played it sometimes.
My first computer at home we got in fourth grade, and I did a lot of BBS’s and stuff like that. So I think I just basically taught myself to type, with occasional help from Typing Tutor.
Not quite the same but definitely related is ‘data entry’. Even that’s probably becoming slightly less common as more forms go online, and are thus entered by the end user, but I’d imagine there’s still a lot of data entry clerks out there.
The anecdotal stuff of when people got taught typing is really interesting. I graduated from high school in 1994, thus having taken that 9th grade typing class in 1990-1991.
Getting back more to my original question, it seems like from the few people who’ve answered who have kids in school now, they have computer classes starting right with first grade, and that typing is being taught somewhere relatively early in that process. Is that correct?
When I went to school it was only offered at the jr high/highschool level (grade 9-12) where they also extended classes to include secretarial (shorthand and whatnot).
That is correct for my kids. They started out with a spelling program which taught a phonic-based method of spelling words, in first grade IIRC. Every year they had some part of their time spent in the computer labs. Sometime between 3rd and 7th grade, they had the ‘keyboarding’ class which was mostly typing. Each of those years they were in ‘keyboarding’ - every student was. Basically, they knew how to type going into high school. In high school they could take classes in Word, Excel, etc. if they wanted to.
Do they really need to teach typing nowadays? I mean, we could all use more focused practice, but isn’t just the vast volume of papers we’re assigned in school enough? My typing isn’t great-- maybe 60ish WPM-- but I never really took a class, just wrote endless papers throughout all of my schooling. Through (maybe) 4th grade it was on a typewriter, and I think anything after that was on the computer, but I’ve had to type things for school since day 1. How can you not become at least reasonably proficient?
I’m 25 years old and went to a private school that offered computer classes since first grade, so like NinetyWt’s kids, I got exposed to it. Computer class was mostly learning how to type. I had that once a week all the way until sixth grade.
By 7th grade I went on to another school, but they didn’t offer those classes. No need for them, I was already a master typist, and still am. I’m surprised not many of my contemporaries know how to type, I always surprise them with the fact that I don’t have to look at the keyboard and can use more than two fingers when typing.
We had formal typing class freshman year high school, and that’s it. This was 1989 and, even then, we learned on manual typewriters. I think there were two electric typewriters in the classroom, but we were taught on the manuals.
When I was in school (Elementary- High School 1967-1980) we did almost none of our work on typewriters, and computers were simply very rare. I did two formal term papers in high school that were typewritten, and that’s all I can remember.
As an undergraduate physics major (1980- 1984) computers were becoming more common, but I STILL didn’t use them in my normal everyday student life. I remember drawing all my graphs by hand, for example.
It wasn’t until I entered graduate school that computers, and thus typing skills, became an everyday part of my life.
Having said that, as an earlier message indicated, I had some prescient advisors (including my parents) who told me in eighth grade that someday I’d be glad to have those typing skills.
Poor choice of words. I know I can type accurately without using the keys to orient myself – I can just put my hands on the keyboard and start whaling away because I have my arms oriented to the laptop itself. That was what I meant. I’m not sure how I’d describe it better.
When I was growing up my mother had a policy of making us kids go to summer school every year. The summer before my freshman year (9th grade) of high school was no different. I took typing and, god help me, speed reading. The speed reading didn’t really stick, but that was pretty much like hauling sand to the beach - I was already a fast reader.
The typing though, I did well at and even got up to 85wpm on the old manual typewriters. So while my friends were spending the Summer of Love hitchhiking to San Francisco with flowers in their hair, I was listening to Mr. Gibson shouting hoarsely, “Stop typing!” to the class.
My mom also told me I should never admit that I could type; she was afraid that as a woman I’d be relegated to secretarial work. I’m really glad she lived long enough to know that in my career as an IT project manager I use - and am thankful for - my typing skills every day, and nobody ever asks me to take a letter.
Do you type with two fingers, or using all of them?
Yea, many students have to type a lot of paperwork, doesn’t mean they’re good or efficient about it. I still have friends who struggle (these are all under 30 years, closer to 25 years olds) when typing things. And they need to be looking at the keyboard and use only the two fingers. Some of them I’ve been with since 7th grade (when we were 12 years old). I remember having to turn it most of my assignments typed (or neatly handwritten which for me is a no go), and so did they. I still sometimes watch them type. They still suck.
I would like typing be taught early. It can be fun when you’re 6 years old to do those silly typing games, and it is a skill that is helpful for many years.
FWIW, when I was in elementary school, I had typing class, but most of my schoolwork was handwritten.
I took typing in 9th grade in 1981. The teacher let us type to Adam Ant’s “King of the Wild Frontier” Album. Imagine 25 kids banging their IBM Selectrics in unison to “Ant Music.” She would turn off the lights so we wouldn’t cheat during our tests, but everyone would just get out of their seats and screw with everyone else’s typewriter. On a postive note, I still use the stuff they taught me when I write stuff at work (even how to fold paper so it comes out of the envelope looking good).
My kid started using computers in pre school. I think she first started using typing tutors in about 3rd grade. Now she takes “Computers for Business” to learn how to be professional with her correspondence as well as the basic office suites.
I use almost all of my fingers-- I find it hard to hit the q with my left pinky, so end up using my ring sometimes. Same with z. I don’t have to look at the keyboard, but I often make mistakes-- I’m good at hitting the backspace key. I’m not saying that typing classes aren’t a good idea, and I like the idea of getting them in early. I think we had some time in our regular classes way back when to practice, possibly with something like Mavis Beacon. Anyway, I’m just saying that once a student has the basics, the vast quantity of papers do the rest.